About a year ago I bought a Canon Powershot G7. I was very happy with it until just over a month ago the lens got stuck just after I closed it and tried to restart it. It was stuck half-way, couldn't get in nor out. So I went to the shop where I bought it frustrated but also tranquil because it was still in guarantee. The shop said it would take two weeks to get repaired. It was send to the repair-service of Canon. When I went back to the shop after two weeks the camera still had not arrived and the shop-owner gave me the tel. of the repair-center. When I phoned them I got a very unfriendly reply from the one on the line saying that the camera could not be repaired under the guarantee as they concluded it got defect by a fall or a heavy blow on the lens. When I replied that the camera had never fallen nor got any blow whatsoever and that it had been handled with great care she said they would send a proof by e-mail with pictures of the camera.
I got that e-mail the next day with very bad dark unclear pictures where only one of them showed a little superficial scratch on one of the corners of the camera.
As I was SO SURE it had NEVER fallen or got a blow I contacted Canon and told about the attitude of their Repair Service Centre. They said they would make an investigation about it and that it would take 3 days, They noted down my tel. and e-mail and said they would contact me. After 3 days there was an impersonal voice-mail from them saying that I have to direct myself to their Repair-Service Centre. I have send then an angry e-mail saying that I contacted them AFTER having contacted their Service Centre and had said that on the phone and they took 3 days to tell me this!!!
I felt SO frustrated and upset as it was so clear to me that there has never been an investigation!!!

Result; I have to cough up 228€ (half the price of the camera)to get it back repaired!
Sigh...:-(

I've found this to be the case with most camera manufacturers... They do what they can to cage the language in the guarantee such that simply using the camera can be enough to invalidate it (obviously a bit of hyperbole).

I've had better luck getting service on dSLR's, than I have on point and shoots - they seem a bit more designed for repair and longer service, whereas with P&S cameras, it's often cheaper for the company to replace it, than to open it up, diagnose the problem, and fix.

Whew am I glad I must have had good cameras. Started out with a Baby Brownie and grew into a Canon E1 about 1950. Went to Sony Mavaca and recently to Canon Rebel SLR Digital. I sent the E1 in for cleaning once. That was it.

I think most of the problems that get testy today are due to outsourcing service. Your service contacts may be totally unrelated to a good old time service department. Just telephone servers. Try on a different day and possibly find entirely different person, attitude and solutions. I just followed this advice with another major name brand problem and got desirable results on the third effort.

Sorry you are having problems...it seems to be a problem for just about anything you purchase anymore that is supposed to be "guaranteed"! Just for an example my neighbor purchased an expensive riding lawn mower from one of the large chain stores...the first time it was used it broke down. He called the store and they said they couldn't do anything because he didn't get the "extended warranty"! Of course it makes no sense...it still had a 1 year guarantee!! Frustrating to say the least!!

A major national big box store pushes the heck out of those extended contracts and fires back the same baloney when something happens within the manufacturer's warrenty time. I happen to know that the customer cost for extended warrenty fix all agreements in this case is based on a flat labor rate three times what the repair shop charges me if I do not have the extended warrenty. The big box store does not maintain a service department. A friend of mine does it for them making pickups and deliveries in unmarked trailers. The contract agreement within a twenty mile radius is $40.00 showing on paper. I have seen it. My cost without the warranty is $20.00.

In fact if you want manufacturer's warrenty you have to deal with the manufacturer not the big box store that sold it. This is also true of all goods purchased on Amazon.com. When pushed with firm pleasant and real claims the manufacturer in America usually comes through.

It's a pain in the "you know what" but that is the way nearly all guarentees now work. I am patiently waiting for a push reel lawn mower from a national manufacturer as we speak. It took all of the above but the replacement for a brand new mower that would not work and could not be made to work is on the way.

Yes Rogye-designer, I got a reply on my last e-mail three days after. But it was just the usual standard blablabla and that their Repair Service Centre had stated that they couldn't repair it under guarantee, not a real reply to the content of my mail.
The Canon Powershot G7 is not really a point-and shoot, it has much more possibilities including the possibility to attach 2 types of extra lenses but is also more complicated to master when you're used to a simple point-and-shoot like I had before. It was quite expensive; I paid 500 € translated in dollars would be about 680 dollars (of course camera's are cheaper in the US). For only 100 € more I could have got the cheapest DSRL from Nikon. Problem is that I would have needed an extra lens for macro which are quite expensive. The one I have has an excellent macro-mode and I do like it very much.

Docgipe, thanks for your advise! I had a real person on the phone the first time, he just told me there would be an investigation but that obviously never happened.
Anyhow it would be too late now anyway as I already signed the agreement for the repair at my cost. I desperately needed my camera...
Even if I wouldn't have agreed with it they would still charge me a bill of 50 € just for having a look at it! The sharks!

That must have been a horrible experience for your neighbour Dellrose!
Is it normal in the US that one only gets 1 year guarantee? Here in Belgium there is a minimum of two years by law. But as you see that didn't help me neither :-(

I got my camera back this afternoon.
But what I discovered now is incredible!!!

I have examined my camera thoroughly. There is not one scratch on it even not a tiny.
They has send me four pics that were supposed to proof the camera had fallen. The ones from the lens I cannot check any longer as they has replaced it by a new. But the picture of the scratch at one of the corners of the camera (supposed to be caused by a fall) is NOT on my camera!!!!

I have now the proof in hand that the picture was fake, perhaps they took it from another camera of the same model or they have fraudulated the picture.

Here you can compare the two pics of the same corner of the camera, the one on the left send by the Repair Service Centre
(I had to lighten it up, because it was so dark)

Wow bonitin what a bunch of crooks! They had you where they wanted, didn't give you a lot of choice! Do you have a government department you can report bad business practise? You have the proof!

I was lucky with Nikon when I needed mine repairing, although the person I spoke to treated me like an idiot. That's understandable though as these cameras take some figuring out, but he could have done it in a nicer way. He got my scorn in return, lol.

I telephoned the online company which I bought it from first, they told me it would be better to contact Nikon directly as they would just send the camera to them. They also have a shop and it's in the same city as the Nikon Headquarters, it seems like a good arrangement, maybe they are commissioned to sell for Nikon.

My camera was repaired and cleaned, one of the focus sensors had blown. I've had no problems since, fingers crossed, I don't think I would want to pay big repair bills but would be lost without it. You must be feeling like a bear with a sore head!

Yes wallaby, that's excactly how I feel! lol.
It feels so bad not only for the expense but the awkward feeling having been cheated and the unfairness of it all which is sickening.
I don't think there is a government department in Belgium where I could go with my complaint, but there is a huge private one 'Testaankoop' and I'm going to try it with them.

It's good to know that Nikon treats its clients with more fairness!

Oh I just found a non-profit organition subsidized by the state on the web, so I'm going to try it with them too